2023-06-18 11:21:44
The President of the European Football Association (UEFA), Alexander Schiffrin, said, on Sunday, that European football should not be afraid of the exodus of one or more players to Saudi clubs, indicating that Riyadh is making a mistake by investing in buying stars at the end of their football career.
The two stars, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, received hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for joining two Saudi clubs this year, and similar offers were made for Lionel Messi and Luka Modric.
And these four players won the “Golden Ball” award as the best player in the world since 2008, and they are all over the age of about 35 years or more.
It is expected that more players will follow their example after transferring a percentage of the ownership of 4 major Saudi clubs this month in favor of the Saudi “Public Investment Fund”, which is headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Scheffrin was asked by a Dutch broadcaster if he was afraid of prominent players leaving Europe, to which he replied emphatically, “No, no, no.”
“I think this is a mistake mainly committed by Saudi football,” the (UEFA) president said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
He added, “Why is this a problem for them? Because they should invest in the academies, they should bring in coaches, they should develop their players.”
He continued, “The system of buying players whose career almost ended is not the system that develops football. This is a mistake China made when it brought players at the end of their career.”
The Ivorian player, Didier Drogba, was one of the first to join the Chinese league in 2012, as clubs there bought strikers from Europe such as Nicolas Anelka and Frederic Kanoute.
The Chinese league and the Chinese national team did not make much progress at the international level in the years that followed.
“It’s not just about the money,” Schifrin said. “The players want to win major competitions. These major competitions are here in Europe.”
When asked if European football had lost its main attraction, he replied: “We haven’t. There are still our players who play football. At the end of their careers, some players go somewhere to make some money.”
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